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PEST HOUSES

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Sites of two pest houses erected in 1723, seen as earthworks.

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(TL 7686 4589 & TL 7669 4560) In September 1993, RCHME's Cambridge office carried out an analytical earthwork survey of Clare Camp [TL 74 NE 10] following a request by Suffolk County Council for management purposes. The sites of two 18th century pest houses, known from documentary and cartographic sources (1a, b) and first identified by Edward Martin (1c) were recorded. Both smallpox houses were located next to ponds and were moved from Clare village and re-erected in 1723 on the Common. The first is identifiable on the ground as a building platform within a sub-rectangular ditched enclosure - its garden - approximately 21m north-west to south-east by 14m wide. The second was located outside the Camp in the south-west corner of the Lower Common. A well defined bank, 3.0m wide and 0.2m hight extending for 13.5m parallel to the Common fence represents the former property boundary.

The Churchwardens Account book for 1723 shows that two cottages were erected on these sites as pest houses for bubonic plague and smallpox (1a). While neither disease was rife, the cottages were available for rent, but during an outbreak, the tenant was moved elsewhere and his rent paid by the church. Both buildings are shown as 'smallpox houses' on the Tithe Map of 1846 (1b). The house within the Camp is not shown on the OS first edition map of 1884, and presumably had been demolished by then. The second house survived until 1960. A postcard of 1916 shows it to have been of typical 17th to 18th century timber framed construction, with a central brick chimney stack. A nineteenth century brick wash house added to the cottage survives in use as a chicken shed.

For further details, see RCHME Level 3 client report and plan at 1: 1000 scale, held in archive. (1)

SOURCE TEXT

(1) General reference

RCHME: Clare Camp Survey

(1a) Externally held archive reference

Churchwardens' Account Book Suffolk CRO FL 501/1/1

(1b) Externally held archive reference

Clare Parish Tithe Map T146/1,2

(1c) Council for British Archaeology Group 6: Bulletin

Martin E. 1991. 'Hillforts in Suffolk - a question of Interpretation'

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